Related Links

PHILADELPHIA - Football season at the University of Pennsylvania is officially underway for the defending Ivy League champions as the team reported to campus on Monday. More than 100 players arrived at the Jack LeFort Football Office Complex in Weightman Hall to signal the start of preseason camp. The first practice of the preseason is Tuesday afternoon.

Monday is a busy day for the players. Following the morning check-in the team has a tight schedule that involves physicals, equipment fitting and a number of meetings touching on topics with the strength and conditioning, media relations, compliance and training staffs. After a team dinner, players will gather together for the season's first team meeting before breaking out into smaller groups for positional meetings.

There will be 28 scheduled practices for Penn leading up to the Sept. 21 season opener against Lafayette. That includes a scrimmage at 16th-ranked Stony Brook on Aug. 31. The team will be in helmets on Tuesday and Wednesday and upper pads on Thursday and Friday. Saturday will be the first day of full pads and Sunday is the first of two two-a-days for the Quakers.

Picked to finish as the runner-up last season, the Quakers (6-4, 6-1 Ivy) won their last four games - all in dramatic fashion - to earn an Ivy League record 13th outright title. Penn returns 40 letterwinners and 20 starters from that championship team, including eight All-Ivy players (four offense, three defense and one specialist).

The Quakers, who were picked to repeat as Ivy champions in the preseason media poll, open their 137th season under the lights at historic Franklin Field when they host Lafayette for a 6 p.m. kickoff on Sept. 21. That matchup will serve as the only night game at the nation's oldest collegiate football stadium this year will also mark the first game on Franklin Field's new SprinTurf.

Season and individual game tickets are available here or by calling the ticket office at 215-898-6151.